Restless
by JougenNoTsuki
Summary: Stuffy, sterile, cold, and most of all, colorless. She really couldn't take much more of that tonight.


Title: Restless

Disclaimer: All rights belong to the other rightful owners of the 'Law & Order' brand.

A/N: I was always very unhappy with how the original draft of this story came out. So I decided to give it a facelift!

- - -

Another exhausting case bogging them down with paperwork and headaches. Suspects that dwindled, and not in the positive, narrowing way. It felt like they hadn't had a decent night sleep in ages, spending most every night confined to the grey brick walls of One Police Plaza's Major Case Squad.

Coffee. It was a cop's lifeline, it was their only way to continue on without losing consciousness and falling asleep right there on their laptops. And it was what they'd gone out for to tear themselves away from the migraine that was their case.

The analog clock clicked loudly as they walked out of the bullpen, out to get coffee. 6:34 PM on a Thursday night, an early night in comparison to the rest of their week. It was decided they would work on their paperwork at a coffee house, for a while. At least until they recuperated and could once again slip back into the mind-numbingly grey squad room.

But coffee, it would have been so easy. Swing by the Starbucks in City Hall Park, or at the dingy little diner off Duane and Elk. Yet somehow they found themselves wandering uptown, far past the tree-covered brick courtyard of Police Plaza, the looming Municipal Building and Federal and State Courthouses. The glamorous clean streets began to fade into shady law offices and Chinese text-covered landmarks.

A passing remark had lead them here. A simple groan, a mumbled complaint.

_God, I'm starving. _

It was with her complaint he suggested instead to get food, not just coffee, and discuss the case over dinner. She had agreed almost without a second thought.

The back end of Chinatown housed one of the few neighborhoods in Manhattan that you would still be wary to venture in after hours, even with the beefed up Police presence, all the bail bonds sharks and convicts roaming out of the Detention Complex could still be unnerving. One particular Chinese take out joint served them well on late nights and tough cases. Usually, though, they ordered into the office.

Happy Lotus Chinese Take-Out. So typically cliché. The tiny take-out business was wedged between a ninety-nine cents store and yet another bail bonds bounty hunter waiting to make a quick buck off the next con to roll through. The interior was less than spectacular, with shiny red wallpaper that had seen better days twenty years ago and a few sleazy-looking patrons waiting around the counter for their food. Shouting in Cantonese echoing out from the kitchen, guarded only by a wall of greasy beads that looked like they'd just crawled out of the nineteen-seventies.

Despite all of this, the food was surprisingly edible. Not the best, but most certainly not the worst. It didn't matter much at the moment, Alex was ready to start chewing on the linoleum countertop at this point. Anything would satisfy.

With warm paper bag in had, Bobby Goren and Alex Eames stepped back out into the darkening streets. The orange flicker of street lamps buzzing above as they made their way back towards the more populated Centre Street. Only more populated by that much, however. Downtown was a ghost town after six.

"Back to the office?"

He had suggested, seeing her face drop with the thought of those damn grey walls. Hm, bad suggestion. Stuffy, sterile, cold, and most of all, colorless. She really couldn't take much more of that tonight.

"Your apartment?"

Her suggestion probably made even less sense - but, it was tempting, considering the fact they were both worn down to the bone. They'd been there before, at each other's apartments for work. It wasn't an out-of-the-ordinary thing...

And so he agreed, ushering her towards the curb where he hailed a yellow taxi. His apartment wasn't too far, considering. Situated in the upper teens just north of the West Village in Chelsea, nearest the Hudson River and trendy night life.

The apartment of Robert Goren was interesting, to say in the least. Though, maybe it was just because it was his that made it interesting. His couch, his lamp, his rug, his closet, his winter boots resting against the wall. A place for everything in the tiny apartment, but usually things in an organized mess. Various magazines spread across the coffee table, the TV remote stuffed into the cushions of the couch, a sad little plant sitting in the window looking like it could desperately use some water. Besides the little quirks of her partner's apartment, it was warm and comfortable.

Except on this night. When he felt the lock click and removed his key, the door swung open and they were hit with a blast of cold air. Her partner fumbled around the short hallway, looking for the light switch and illuminating the dark room.

"God, Bobby..." she huffed, closing the door behind her and giving the dead bolt a strong twist, "It's like a meat locker in here..."

He was already working on removing the various items from the bag as she rounded the corner into his crawl space of a kitchen.

"Y-yeah," he mumbled, eyeing two cartons in his hands, trying to distinguish his from hers, "The, uh, window unit is broken. If I don't unplug it it stays on all day... I must have forgotten this morning..."

She felt her lips curl into a smirk as she made her way across the shadowy livingroom, "Our friends at Con-Ed must love you..." She gave the cord to the air conditioning unit a strong tug, the loud hum coming to croaking, sickly stop. Knowing the new stillness wouldn't do, she cracked the window and let the sounds of the distant avenues come wafting in.

The two detectives set up at his coffee table, he offered her the couch and took the floor for himself. She accepted, and proceeded to stretch her legs out across the leather sofa. Relaxing at last... Perhaps now the barriers up in their minds could come down, and they'd finally be able to get some real work done on this stressful case.

Alex noticed her partner was extra driven to get the case finished. Using her to provoke his brain, wanting to get everything out in the open and lead them to a conclusion. One he desperately needed. It was true, Robert Goren was the "genius" of the department, but one did not take Alexandra Eames with a grain of salt. In their personal lives, their social, away-from-the-job lives they were two completely different people. But in the whole of the NYPD could you not find a better partnership. There was no one without the other - there was no Goren without Eames, and vice versa. On their own they were strong, dependable, intelligent cops. Together they were an unstoppable force, an oil and water that flowed together against all laws of science.

The night wore on, their cartons of take-out Chinese long-since turned cold and unappetizing. Replaced by paperwork and evidence. Crime scene photos were spread across the floor and Bobby held a magnifying glass to the breast of the victim's shirt, making some comment about a logo he couldn't make out. His partner sat with highlighter in hand and going over the Local Usage Details, picking out numbers that were more than suspicious. Every once and a while they'd share with the other their suspicions and inklings. At the moment they were silent.

The clock seemed to be moving at an incredible pace. Hours slipping by unnoticed, the quiet of the sleeping streets disturbed only by passing cars and a few laughing pedestrians. Bobby felt his back tighten as he went to sit up from his hunched-over inspecting, opening his mouth to make a comment to his partner. He closed it quickly, seeing her eyes shut and back rising and falling softly. Her head leaned against a throw pillow and her body only half on the couch - a leg and an arm dangling off the side like a rag doll as she laid on her stomach.

He decided it was time to turn it in. Clearing away the cartons of food as quietly as he could, shuffling the papers together and tucking them neatly into his bag, he began to unbutton his dress shirt he'd been in for more than eighteen hours. The tired, haggard detective shuffled into his room, opened the closet and pulled out a quilt he saved for especially cold winter nights.

With a quick shake to make sure it wasn't too dusty, he brought it back out to the living room and gently laid it over her. Blond hair stuck to her face, mouth agape and eyes shut softly. Nothing could wake her from this deep sleep. He knew by the time he woke up in the morning that she'd be long gone - somehow she always knew when to get up and get out of his hair in time to make it home to shower and dress for a new day. No matter how little sleep she got.

Giving her foot a tap he smirked, and proceeded to pull of his dress shirt and make his way to his bedroom. With a thought to close the door and give her privacy, he ended up deciding to only close it halfway. Despite the sleep deprivation, the hours of work, and the headache that would most likely rear its ugly head when he woke in the morning, there was something calming about knowing that Eames was fast asleep on his couch. It was nice, he thought, to be able to fall asleep thinking about something other than the case.


End file.
